Popular, lightweight bicycles, especially those fitted with ten-speed transmissions and intended for racing or sport uses, are equipped with drop or racing handlebars that emerge from a steering post transverse to the front wheel of the bicycle, eventually bending so as to be generally parallel to the front wheel with the grips extending rearward. The handlebar has free end portions on opposite sides of the post on which grips are located below the point of attachment of the handlebars to the steering post of the bicycle, with the free end portions disposed in vertical planes generally parallel to the front wheel of the bicycle. This configuration permits the rider to bend over in a crouching position while riding and to apply his maximum force and effort to the pedals thereby maximizing his speed.
With the handlebar grips located below the point of attachment to the steering post, however, a bicycle is not suited for general touring or traveling uses since the rider is bent over and cannot comfortably observe his surroundings or carry on conversation with fellow cyclers. Bicycles produced for touring uses generally have the grips of the handlebars located in horizontal planes transverse to the front wheel of the bicycle and located at least as high as the point of attachment of the handlebars to the steering post of the bicycle.
Although a rider might acquire both a racing and a touring bicycle so as to be equipped for either use, it is not economical to do so and numerous inventors have disclosed means for adjusting the handlebars of a single bicycle between the racing and touring positions.
The simplest constructions provide for the rotation of the handlebars on an axis transverse to the plane of the front wheel of the bicycle. This rotation is generally easy since most handlebars are attached to the bicycle steering post with a compression clamp that need only be loosened to permit the rotation. See U.S. Pat. No. 689,217. Modern racing and touring bicycles generally have brakes activated by cable-connected levers attached to the free end portions of the handlebars. Rotating the handlebars about the axis of the steering post clamp reverses the action of the brake levers thereby creating a potential for inadvertently applying the brakes unless the levers are modified. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,803,937. Other inventions for changing the position of the gripping parts of the handlebar to make bicycles collapsible for shipping have involved rotation plus disassembly of the handlebar, all of which is inconvenient, time-consuming and requires the use of tools. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,481,218.
Yet other inventors have disclosed means of adjusting the position of bicycle handlebar grips by providing for rotation of the bars about axes generally parallel to the front wheel of the bicycle and very close to the frame of the bicycle. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 575,746, 583,105 and 603,995. While these inventions may overcome the problem with the reversal of the action of the hand brake levers, all suffer from the disadvantage that the distances of the handlebars from each other and from the bicycle frame vary widely according to the horizontal position of the handlebar grips. Thus, in the drop or racing position, the handlebars can be undesirably far apart if a comfortable spacing in the touring position is provided.
More modern disclosures of adjustable handlebar inventions involve complicated multiple joints and/or complex machined parts resulting in high cost, expensive modification of an existing bicycle and/or relatively long times in making adjustments of the handlebar positions. U.S. Pat. No. 1,595,557 discloses a construction which permits rapid adjustment of the handlebar position by the use of spring-release pawl mechanisms. But those mechanisms require relatively expensive machined parts and do not permit simple modification of the existing handlebars for use as part of the invention. The apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,023,436 to Dodge, provides for great variations in the location of the handlebar grips, but only with expensive modification of the existing handlebars, including the replacement of the existing handlebar steering post with an entirely different support means. Furthermore, except possibly for an adjustment of the angle of the gripping parts of the handlbar with respect to a vertical supporting member, adjustment of the Dodge handlebar is time-consuming and requires the use of tools.
Therefore, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide an inexpensive and rapid means by which the handlebars of a bicycle or the like may be adjusted between racing or drop positions and touring positions.